


Night Owls

by tjstar



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Sleepwalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-21 13:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9551897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: Two sleepwalkers keep meeting at nights in various places.





	

_‘How did I get here?’_ is the first thought that pops up in Josh’s brain as he scratches the back of his head in attempts to stimulate his thinking process.

 _‘How did I get here?’_ he wonders again, fiddling with the keys in his pocket.

This happens. Regularly. And therefore, this has happened again, and that’s why a very drowsy Josh finds himself standing in the frozen-food aisle in Walmart at 2AM.

 _‘I need someone to watch me,’_ Josh decides, shivering from the cold radiating from the fridges. He’s only wearing his shorts and a ratty t-shirt and a pair of his old sneakers and he’s more than sure he looks like a lunatic.

Though he doesn’t see anyone staring at him right now. It’s hard to find the buyers in Walmart at 2AM. Josh shuffles past the shelves, not wanting to get any attention from the annoying cashiers or from the security, and that’s where he bumps into This Guy.

“Oh man, I’m sorry,” Josh gibbers out.

“That’s okay,” he gets a hesitant answer.

The dude doesn’t sound like he’s fine.

The dude doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing here.

“Are you sure?” Josh waves his arm in front of the stranger’s nose because he seems to be zoning out again.

“Yeah,” the guy says, glancing at Josh perplexedly. He has sad brown eyes. “I’m okay.”

He’s okay, of course — that’s probably why his sweatpants are so baggy he pulls them up every second and his white t-shirt is inside-out as if he was getting dressed up in a complete darkness. Josh touches the loose thread and a small hole on his shoulder, causing him to stagger backwards.

“But it’s late at night and…” Josh starts, trailing off promptly. The guy groans.

“Have a _good_ night then,” he says politely, hastily running towards the exit.

Josh hopes no one thinks he’s stolen something from the store.

He just wants to be back in his bed right now.

 

***

“If you’re gonna take it you have to pay for it!”

The voice doesn’t sound friendly. Josh emerges from his dreamless slumber and blinks at the huge guy in the leather vest fuming like a blazing fire right in front of him. He’s so masculine he can be a biker, Josh thinks.

Josh puts a pack of Malboro back into the display stand. He doesn’t even smoke.

“Much better,” the store owner hisses with the subsiding rage. “I hate it when punks like you try to steal something of mine.”

Josh wordlessly listens to the dude scolding him as if he’s just a teenage boy. He wasn’t going to steal these stupid cigarettes. And if he has a full-sleeve tattoo and a red mohawk it doesn’t mean he’s a punk. But Josh is a bit flattered though.  

The new flow of curses makes Josh focus on his surroundings again — sometimes he keeps sleeping with his eyes open, probably.

“What the hell are you two doing at a gas station without cars?”

“Two?” Josh ignores the fact he’s appeared in the gas station store in just his pajamas, but what does this dude mean —

“He looked like a druggie, and I wanted to call the police on him. But he said he didn’t want to rob me…” the dude obviously intends to continue, but at the same time Josh spots _This Guy_  again, plodding down the poorly lit road on the other side of the large window.

“Oh, thanks,” Josh exhales, feeling the anticipation tingling in his stomach.

Josh barely catches _him_ outside; he’s wearing the same clothes as during their awkward meeting in Walmart.

“Is it you again?” the guy unflappably turns his head.

“What’s your name?” Josh asks with the short nod. “I’m Josh, by the way.”

“Do you really think it’s a right time to introduce ourselves?” he huffs nervously but then his voice softens. “Fine. I’m Tyler,” he even grudgingly shakes Josh’s hand.

“Nice to meet you again, Tyler. It was a long walk,” Josh drawls musingly.

“What about to call a taxi?” Tyler pulls a cellphone out of the pocket of his pants. “Don’t want to walk all the way back home.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Josh agrees. His legs hurt like they might just break underneath him.

Tyler has a pretty lopsided smile.

The night doesn’t seem so violent anymore.

 

***

“You should wear more clothes.”

The voice shoots like a ray of light through the fog in Josh’s head.

Josh bounces away from the edge of the rooftop in fright.

“How did you-” he doesn’t even need to turn around to recognize a person talking to him.

Josh just wants to stay away from the infinitely dark abyss below. His sleepwalking crosses the line sometimes. He’s above the tenth floor now and falling down from this height definitely wouldn’t guide to a happy ending. Josh feels bad for the poor people who would have to scrub his mangled body off the asphalt.

“Just woke up standing here,” Tyler shrugs, taking a few steps towards Josh and sitting down on the cold roof beside him. “We keep waking up together — don’t you think it’s getting strange?”

It _is_ strange, considering that Tyler lives a few blocks away from Josh’s apartment complex — Josh remembers pretty well where the taxi stopped during their last ‘meeting’.

“Are you stalking me?!” Josh shouts, fists balled up. He doesn’t want to beat Tyler up though, but this creepy situation is becoming just dire.

“No, no calm down,” Tyler shows him his empty palms. “We’re just two sleepwalkers, right? I don’t know why it keeps happening, but I feel like some power makes me come to you. It sounds weird, I know.”

“Some power?”

“I can’t put it into words. You’re a magnet, and I’m the swarf,” Tyler simply says, looking up at the sphere of the full moon. “Something like this.”

“Something like this,” Josh repeats blankly.

Josh massages his biceps with the pads of his cold fingers as the sudden gust of wind sends the dust and fallen leaves swirling like a miniature tornado.

Beside him, Tyler puffs out a sigh.

Tyler looks cute when he twiddles his messy hair.

“Let’s get back home now.”

Josh has to admit that he actually doesn’t mind waking up this way and seeing Tyler next to him.

 

***

Josh wears more clothes next time, and Tyler huddles to him like a stray cat. Josh’s brain snaps back to consciousness when Tyler sniffs loudly and wipes his runny nose on his short sleeve.

“Hey,” he whispers huskily.

“Hey,” Josh whispers back.

He offers Tyler his jacket to cover his shaking shoulders; Tyler takes it gratefully, pulling the collar up and tucking his hands under his armpits.

“You’re gonna catch a cold,” Tyler slurs, sniffing again.

“Nah, I have a pretty warm sweatshirt,” Josh smiles at him. He’s dressed up properly before falling asleep this evening. “But it seems like you’ve already caught it.”

Tyler just sneezes, putting both of his palms over his mouth.

“Maybe,” he says nasally, quivering again. “This thing makes me leave the house without my hoodie sometimes.”

“It’s good that you have me now,” Josh tells him, zipping up the jacket Tyler is wearing now.

Tyler hides his hands in the pockets and Josh suddenly thinks of a pack of mint gum he’s left here. Tyler chuckles as he fishes it out and gives it back to Josh.

“It’s a good tradition, isn’t it?”

Josh hefts the half-empty pack on his palm.

“It’s all good until we’re too close to the edge.”

Tyler laughs wholeheartedly.

And Josh laughs along with him.

Josh isn’t scared of being so close to the edge of the rooftop if he has Tyler by his side.

 

***

Tyler’s blue and green plaid shirt emits warmth as Josh touches the fabric on his sleeve carefully. He’s just woken up sitting on the bench in the park, leaning back to back with Tyler. Tyler mumbles in his sleep, suddenly tossing and lurching forward and nearly crashing down on the grass.

“Don’t make sudden moves, dude,” Josh smirks, catching him. Though, Josh’s grin promptly fades as he notices the glimpse of genuine fear in Tyler’s still sleepy eyes.

“I thought…” he clears his throat. “I thought we were on the rooftop.”

“No, we weren’t,” Josh soothes him. “We’re still on the ground.”

Tyler’s nimble fingers tangle in Josh’s curls, brushing his bangs off his eyes as he keeps clinging to Josh, still enclosed by his nightmare. Josh kind of wants to take him home and never leave him alone.

“But… I can’t fly, I didn’t want to fall,” Tyler stammers out.

“I wouldn’t let you fall,” Josh coos, hugging Tyler and rocking him back and forth.

“I didn’t want to di-” Tyler mutters, apparently falling asleep again.

“I wouldn’t let you,” Josh keeps repeating. “I wouldn’t let you.”

Roaming Columbus at nights might be dangerous — Josh had gotten into couple fights in his past, and he’s pretty certain his semi-conscious state wouldn’t help him avoid injuries now. Josh doesn’t want to end up lying dead on the sandlot one day.

He hums under his breath as he calls the taxi — these late night journeys are really fatiguing.

 

***

“You dyed your hair yellow.”

“You shaved your head.”

Things are changing and the life goes on, but waking up to Tyler’s scratchy voice is something that has become Josh’s personal anchor. They’re on the rooftop, again, sitting and watching the rising sun that slashes the remaining darkness and paints the sky in orange palette.

They have a big thermos with hot coffee and a warm blanket and Taco Bell food because both of them have known they were going to meet here again.

“This is the first time the sleepwalking has brought something good to me,” Josh concludes, sipping on his coffee.

“I had to train myself not to take my clothes off before going to sleep,” Tyler says. “Sometimes I think I can control it.”

“You can,” Josh agrees fervently. “You didn’t forget to bring a backpack with food.”

“I had to take it in the bed with me,” Tyler chuckles. “It’s easier to focus this way, I guess.”

“I had to wrap myself into a blanket and eventually pass out, hugging a thermos,” Josh giggles at how hilarious it sounds.

“It’s nice that we’re so smart.”

“It is,” Josh agrees.

“This kinda looks like a date,” Tyler says, pulling his black beanie down to his furrowed eyebrows. “Would you mind if I call our meetings like this? Dates,” Tyler tastes the word, thinking. “Sounds good, by the way.”

“Yeah, I call them ‘dates’ in my head, too,” Josh says, picking at the taco on the plastic plate on his lap. “We think about the same things, we keep waking up in the same places — is this a kind of a soulmate mark?” Josh ponders, relaxing under the first streams of sunlight crawling across his skin.

“Maybe. Who knows?”

Tyler stretches and his hoodie rides up, revealing his flat stomach with the thin red lines dried on it. Josh wants to tear his eyes away from the cuts not to embarrass Tyler, but he just keeps staring unabashedly until Tyler tugs his hoodie back down.

Josh swallows his question along with the wave of his still hot coffee.

“The sky is especially beautiful today,” Tyler points out. “Sometimes I think I’m so used to the darkness I forget there’s the sun,” he gives Josh a fluttering smile. “And our dates… they help. Better than anything else.”

“So we’re friends now?” Josh wraps his fingers around the plastic cup.

“Best friends,” Tyler says, shoving the crumbles of taco into his mouth.

Josh’s curious mind and his sleepwalking don’t get very well together, but Tyler is right — their offbeat _dates_ help.

Though Josh hates to note that Tyler’s scars still look pretty fresh.

 

***

Josh wakes up in his bed this time.

 _‘How’s Tyler doing?’_ is his first morning thought. _‘Where did all my clothes go?’_ is the second.

The snoring next to his ear sounds oddly comforting.

The warm naked body next to him feels oddly comforting too.

“Tyler?” Josh doesn’t believe it when he sees his friend here. “Wake up,” he tries to unwrap the blanket.

“Josh?” Tyler seems to be a little confused, rubbing his eyes with his fists and looking down at himself. “Did we… we finally did it?”

Josh sits up, throwing the blanket over his lap.

“Yeah,” Josh yawns. “We did it.”

He suddenly wants to lick the row of small bruises on Tyler’s neck, trailing down to his collarbones.

Tyler begins to pick up his clothes off the floor.

“Do you regret this?”

“No,” Josh shakes his head. “You?”

“I’m sore all over,” Tyler smirks gloomily. “In a good way though,” he pauses, nipping the lined skin on his stomach. “And those weren’t the good ways.”

“You don’t have to talk about this — I… I didn’t even mean to ask,” Josh assures, taking his jeans from the chair.

“But you noticed it anyway,” Tyler shrugs.

Josh can’t deny — he was aware of the scars all the way while he was pinning Tyler’s skinny body down the lumpy mattress and kissing, kissing, kissing him until they pulled apart breathless. Josh just tried to shift his attention on the outlines of geometric tattoos on Tyler’s chest while he was preoccupied with keeping the rhythm of his measured thrusts.

“Yes,” Josh says. “I noticed.”

“They’re gonna heal one day, aren’t they?”

Josh really hopes so. Tyler is now wearing a rubber band on his wrist.

They drink coffee in the kitchen a half an hour later, watching a gradually brightening sky from the window. The sun washes away the grim of the night, and this is so inspiring, so refreshing. It seems that their first sex has only strengthened the elusive bound between them.

Josh reaches to stroke Tyler’s now extremely short brown hair, and Tyler leans to the touch with the smug grin on his face.

Josh mirrors Tyler’s smile.

“Where do you think we will wake up next time?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tyler distracts on the mug in his hand, puffing the steam away. “Nothing really matters for as long as we wake up together.”

“I really like this concept,” Josh says and pulls Tyler into a hug.

Their sorrows drown out in the smell of coffee.

This morning is the best thing Josh’s sleepwalking could ever give him.

**Author's Note:**

> it was just my random idea so yeah


End file.
